We have been funded by ASME through the Small Grant Award Scheme to undertake a multi-centre qualitative study to explore the motivations of General Practitioners teaching undergraduate medical students in primary care.

General Practitioners have become a fundamental aspect of teaching in modern medical school curricula with the average amount of teaching in primary care in UK medical schools now at 13-14%.  There are calls for this to increase with the move of more patient care into the community.  Capacity for undergraduate General Practice (GP) placements is now a serious challenge for many medical schools with practices facing competing demands from service, and expansion of postgraduate training activity, alongside a reported GP recruitment crisis.

The study will be a qualitative, explorative, study involving semi-structured interviews with 6-8 GP teachers from each of five medical schools (Brighton&Sussex, Keele, Lancaster, Newcastle and UCL) led by myself and our clinical teaching fellows.   The aim is to identify the barriers and facilitators to GPs teaching medical students in the UK, in order to increase the recruitment of GPs teaching in current and future medical school curricula.  The results will be available by early next year in time to inform the new Newcastle MBBS curriculum which is expected to include a significant increase of teaching in primary care.

Dr Hugh Alberti, School of Medical Education